Welcome to the Era of the Carefully Curated Restaurant Playlist

March 15, 2011

Sounds like Nate Smith, the ex-Spotted Pig chef who left Dean Street in Brooklyn shortly after its opening, may have had it right: You can’t just let diners pick their dinner-accompanying music all willy-nilly. The Post talks to chefs and restaurateurs from trendy restaurants around the city to confirm that the dinnertime playlist counts.

Says Jeffrey Tascarella, managing partner of the new Tenpenny in Midtown:

“I work on our playlist every day. We make notes — like, ‘That didn’t work, that was a little weird, that Frank Zappa song got a little crazy.’ “

Oh, and by the way, soft music in restaurants is out. Quoth Ken Friedman of Spotted Pig:

“A lot of us like loud music — it doesn’t make the food taste any worse, at least not to me. Maybe to my grandma. But my grandma’s not going to wait an hour and a half to get into the Pig. We didn’t create a restaurant for her.”

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